Thomas Doyle (priest)

Doyle was born on 21 December 1793 in London, of Irish parents. He was studying at St. Edmund's College, Ware, where he had been organist, when in 1819 William Poynter made him a priest to counter a shortfall. Doyle was sent to the site of the future St. George's Cathedral, then the Royal Belgian Chapel, on the London Road in Southwark, in 1820, and nine years later he became the senior priest there. St George's Fields was a site associated with the Gordon Riots, and Doyle was instrumental in the construction of the cathedral there, designed by Augustus Pugin. Work started in September 1840, and the building was consecrated on 4 July 1848. Doyle published frequently in The Tablet, as "Father Thomas". He died at St. George's Cathedral on 6 June 1879, and was buried there. ==Augusta Talbot case==

On good terms with John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, Doyle around 1839 took on the guardianship of Augusta Talbot, a niece of the Earl. In 1850, this position involved him in publicly-expressed suspicion of his motives, when she was placed in St Joseph's Convent, Taunton (see St Joseph's Convent, Taunton#1851 case of Augusta Talbot). There was a court case in 1851, after which Augusta remained Doyle's ward, but left the convent, marrying Lord Edward Howard that year. The case involved Craven Berkeley, Augusta's stepfather. He had married Augusta Talbot (née Jones), widow of George Henry Talbot and Augusta's mother, in 1839; she died in 1841. Doyle made a petition for access to Augusta (Doyle v Wright) in 1840. The custody petition of March 1851 continued that case. Popular interest in the issue linked anti-Catholic feeling with Augusta Talbot's status as an heiress to £80,000, around the allegation that the Catholic Church would profit if she died a nun. ==Notes==